OK New Yorker dopers, I’ll be traveling to NYC in late October. I never been to the city or to JFK. What is the best way to get back and forth from JFK and the Lower Manhattan?
I have been warned to avoid the taxis and to get a car service. But are the taxis that bad?:dubious: And the cost looks to be about the same.
Also I read some where about taking the Subway to World Trade Center station, or to Cortland St.( E or A trains). Can you take baggage on the subway?
And most importantly, If i have a 11:15 am departing flight from JFK on a Sunday, what time should I be leaving the hotel ( Millenium Hilton) to get to the airport? is 7am to early to be leaving for the airport?
Thanks in advance for your help.
You can use the Subway in combination with Airtrain to get to JFK. In lower Manhattan, you can catch the A train at Fulton Street.
You’re allowed to take baggage on the subway, but if you have more than one bag or a have large one it would be a hassle. However, on Sunday morning there won’t be many people so it would be relatively easier.
Taxis are fine. What you want to avoid is fake taxis, offered by shady-looking characters in the terminal going “psst! Taxi?!”
Get in the actual taxi line with the dispatcher and you’ll be fine. Real taxi drivers do not solicit fares inside the terminal. Taxi fares from JFK to Manhattan are flat-rated at $52 plus surcharges and tip.
You can take the AirTrain ($5.00 exit fare) to Jamaica Station and transfer to the E subway ($2.75 fare) which goes aaaallll the way through Queens and Manhattan and puts you at the WTC. But it will probably be a lot faster to take the AirTrain to Howard Beach where you can get the A subway which gets you very close at Fulton Center. Both options are about equidistant from your hotel. You can take your baggage, both physical and emotional. If the train is busy, try to keep it piled up rather than sprawled out.
The subway and AirTrain both take MetroCards. Note that the AirTrain does not take unlimited-ride MetroCards, so get a cash fare one. (You can also get both types on one card, but this is not covered until the Advanced New York class.)
7am should be fine.
Alternative faster option: More expensive than the subway, less than a taxi:
Take the AirTrain to Jamaica Station and then take the Long Island Railroad to Penn Station. Then transfer to the A or E subway downtown. Total cost is $5.00 AirTrain plus $7.25 train fare plus $2.75 subway fare = $15.
I flew into JFK 2 weeks after 9/11 (Alitalia wouldn’t change our tickets for free) and all the ATM’s there were still down. We were fortunate to have just enough for the bus service that deposited us at Grand Central in Manhattan (IIRC, $13 each way back then). There’s still such a bus from Newark, so is there one from JFK? A lot less hassle than the subway, and not that much more expensive.
By comparison, we took a cab from JFK to Newark once, and a decade or more ago the fare was $100. Cabs from LaGuardia (last time I checked) were flat fare about $25 to midtown. I assume there’s a flat fare for cabs at JFK too? Google suggests $58 plus tunnel toll. Depending on the bus fare, it may not be prohibitive for several people to take a cab instead?
Thanks for the help and advice. I’m going to be taking the cab… It seems to be the least hassle. I watched a YouTube video of a air train and lIR to Penn station… that looks convoluted and so forth.
As an aside question is it safe to go north of 125th. I ask because a co-worker of mine ( she has not been in NYC since Ed Koch was Mayor… and she expressly forbidden me to go to Harlem or the Bronx… Is it safe to go there?
As to the safety of Harlem, when Bill Clinton left the White House, he set up offices at 55 West 125th Street. Now, admittedly, he had the advantage of Secret Service protection. But his staff certainly didn’t. So I can’t imagine that he would have done so had it been unsafe.
It’s changed enormously since the 1970s. Harlem is now gentrifying.There are still bad neighborhoods in the Bronx, but nowhere near what it was like 40 years ago. And there are plenty of neighborhoods that are perfectly safe. To give advice, I’d have to know specifically where you were planning to go.
My own neighborhood has changed radically since the 1970s. When I lived there it was almost entirely Irish and Italian. Now it’s very mixed, with Latinos, blacks (especially West Indian), Asians, and others. But I still feel safe when I go back there.
Is it safe in the way any other large us city is… I lived in Houston and Dallas for a few years. And basically I felt safe in so much as I kept aware of my surroundings…
New York is one of the safest large cities in the US, being 43rd on the list for violent crime. With a violent crime rate of 597 per 100,000 population, it is much safer than Houston (991) and and significantly safer than Dallas (665).
A couple of years ago my wife was looking for a particular store, we walked from the subway to the address. Oh, look, we’re walking past the Apollo theatre.
Similarly, we took the green subway up to 116th, I think, to find Costco and Target; and walked over to the river. At no time did we feel uncomfortable, and like 125th St, there were a number of people visible of all colours - it wasn’t apparently a no-go area for whites or any such nonsense.
Confirming what others have said, we took a taxi from JFK to midtown Manhattan 4-1/2 years ago, and it was a flat fare, plus tip of course. Just do that, but yes, get in the actual taxi queue. No fake taxis tried to grab us. Be aware that the flat fare is good only from JFK and not to it.
I never cease to be impressed as to how deeply flame-etched into people’s consciousness is the postapocalyptic-urban-dystopian picture of NYC established in the early/mid 80s, and it’s already 2016.
Like he said, of course you need to be aware of your surroundings whether in NY, Los Angeles, London or Paris. In NY in this day and age of “see something, say something” you will find if anything more hyperawareness of surroundings on the part of everyone in the street and that helps too.
Now, sure, you still can’t predict the random lunatic, and in any conurbation of that size you will have more of them, but at the same time the very large number of potential targets said rando loon has to choose from also shifts the averages in your favor.
When my wife and i go to New York, our choice about getting to and from JFK usually turns, as much as anything, on how much luggage we have, and what time of day it is.
If we have a relatively small amount of luggage that can easily be carried down into the subway, we’re likely to just take the subway and the AirTrain. This is especially true if it’s a time of day when there’s likely to be a lot of traffic on the road.
I like riding the subway, and in my experience it generally takes no more time to get to the airport than a taxi does, especially if there are any traffic backups. The transfer to the AirTrain is incredibly easy, and you’re right there at the terminal. We did it just a couple of months ago, and the whole experience was completely painless.
I’m not especially averse to taxis. And if we avoid them, it’s not generally about the money. When you’ve spent $400-500 each on flights from the west coast, plus another grand for accommodation, to say nothing of meals and entertainment, 60 bucks for a cab isn’t much to add on. But we both like the principle of public transit, and living in San Diego we don’t get that much opportunity to take advantage of it.
Same here, if I’m travelling light I’m AirTraining it both ways (if my NYC hotel is within easy walking distance of Penn Station I’ll choose to use the LIRR connection rather than the Subway just for the greater comfort). If packing more than it’s comfortable to man-schlep around stations and in transit cars, it’s the prix fixe Yellow Cab inbound and a prereserved livery car outbound, or the latter both ways; shuttles, only if I’ve got plentiful time to spare.
